Knitting my life back together (or, the power of yarn in ED recovery)
February 12, 2013 
18 Comments
Anyone who is friends with me on Facebook knows that I love several things in life almost to ridiculous extremes: coffee, cats, and yarn. The latter is a bit of a newer obsession than the first two (I’ve always loved cats, and I was the five-year-old stealing her mother’s Dannon coffee yogurt out of the downstairs fridge), but no less extreme. We shall not discuss the size of my yarn stash, but needless to say, it’s pretty significant.
I first learned to crochet when I was in treatment for my ED. For some reason or another, our afternoon therapy group got canceled and I was really bored. One of the girls there crocheted some of the most beautiful things and, for lack of anything better to do, I asked her to teach me. I was hooked. (Haha, get it? Hooked? On crochet?) I found it really fun, really soothing, and it was just a major bonus that I got to make something and have an item to show for my efforts.
As I’ve gone to treatment centers to speak and such, I’ve found that knitting or crochet is insanely popular. It’s cheap, fairly simple to teach and learn, and it’s a good way to keep yourself occupied. But a study published a few years back in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders (Clave-Brule et al., 2009) on how knitting can help people hospitalized for ED actually broke down the benefits of learning to knit. The researchers took 38 inpatients and encouraged and taught them how to knit as part of their standard recreation therapy on the ED unit. About 2/3 of the patients (25) already knew how to knit, and 13 learned while in the hospital. On average, the patients spent 80 minutes per day knitting, with ranges of 0-5 hours.
Three quarters of the people in the study said that knitting helped to distract them from the ED thoughts and that it provided a means of relaxation. Over half said that knitting provided a feeling of accomplishment, and a sense of comfort and relaxation.
A full breakdown of the patient responses is below.
One of the reasons that the authors believe that knitting is so helpful in people with EDs is that it lowers body state activity. It’s usually heightened in EDs due to overexercise, anxiety, and general muscle tension. Conclude the authors:
…tasks that alter their body state routines may be a novel means of helping individuals with AN switch out of an anxious, preoccupied mindset. This analysis predicts that reconfiguring the relationship between body state routines and cognition may reduce anxiety and distress, allowing distancing of thought and feelings. Clearly, further research is needed to investigate the effects of knitting on individuals with AN, and in particular to distinguishing the relative effects of such a task on distressing thoughts and distressing images.
I wouldn’t say that I knitted my way to recovery; it’s far more complicated than that. But it DID play a huge role in helping me ride out the distress of eating and weight gain, as well as providing me with a hobby that could productively occupy my time.
I agree with this so much. I learned to knit when I was young from my step-mom but I never really did yarn things until my first inpatient treatment and then I got super into it. Knitting or crocheting is really a wonderful distraction for me around meals and general anxiety, but it also helped me learn to SIT THE FUCK DOWN. My anxiety/probably some ED stuff used to make it almost impossible for me to sit through anything: movies, therapy, TV. Knitting really helped and I have been known (in times of serious yarn drought/in the hospital) to knit things and then pull them out just to be able to keep knitting. Now I’m just an addict and I have to restrain myself from buying hella yarn (it’s out of control)
Let’s not discuss yarn stashes, okay? *looks around nervously*
Yes! For years I had well intentioned strangers, fellow patients, treatment team members etc etc say to me “Have you tried knitting?” and I would respond in my angry, dark way “Yeah sure, that’s all it takes, some yarn and I’m better again!” But then I actually sat down and knit a scarf and wow, it’s remarkable how much it helped.
Which craft (knitting/crochet/embroidery) is the best choice for one with absolutely no patience and for one who wants to learn/perfect everything right away?…
I am, of course, speaking of myself…Currently my “no-moving” fixation is standing at my computer and feverishly noting and archiving recipes I will most likely never make!
There’s beading, as well as loom knitting (not very familiar with that, but it’s very popular). Crochet is far easier to correct mistakes (which you WILL make, no matter how advanced you get).
Part of what’s therapeutic about crochet/knitting is the act of learning something. Of accepting your imperfections and figuring things out. You can learn and get down some really basic skills with both crochet and knitting right away and build from there.
Thank you so much for the rapid response!..I am going to check out loom knitting and perhaps get back to beading (I did this in camp in elementary school!)..Also, if I weren’t so intimidated by the knitting manuals here in France (they seem so complicated and mathematically challenging)I would love the “comfy” aspect of simply handling soft yarn. I just may seek out a patient teacher to learn in a “one-on-one” situation..as this might help remove me from a rather self-isolation phase!..Thanks again. Your posts are truly strength-giving and inspiring.
There are lots of good YouTube videos that are really helpful. I love the ones by The Knit Witch. I don’t speak French so I don’t know if there are any good ones in your language, but the videos are really good to just see what they’re doing.
Much thanks again!..I will definitely check out “The Knit Witch”. While I speak/write/live French every day..I still have trouble with technical manuals from time to time. I am an Oregonian living abroad, and finding a hobby-link from the States might prove to be easier than trying to learn here.
I often wish I could express my frustrations with anorexia to an english-speaking team (although I am certain there are fabulous ED team “players”…psychiatrists, doctors, nutrionists here in France)..for I often do not feel as articulate, or able to express my innermost feelings/thoughts in French, although everyone deems me to be “fluent”.
Much thanks again!..I will definitely check out “The Knit Witch”. While I speak/write/live French every day..I still have trouble with technical manuals from time to time. I am an Oregonian living abroad, and finding a hobby-link from the States might prove to be easier than trying to learn here.
I often wish I could express my frustrations with anorexia to an english-speaking team (although I am certain there are fabulous ED team “players”…psychiatrists, doctors, nutrionists here in France)..for I often do not feel as articulate, or able to express my innermost feelings/thoughts in French, although everyone deems me to be “fluent”.
For those considering taking up knitting/crocheting, I cannot recommend joining ravelry.com strongly enough. It is a free social network site, and an extraordinary resource for patterns, inspiration, yarns, and extremely awesome people.
I spend way too much time on Ravelry!
In some ways I am an uncordinated person and I cannot knit. I don’t handle tasks well like that. I have no patience for knitting and i am not a knitting person. In treatment units i’ve been in people made friendship bracelets and i could never get the hang of those.
Nothing really can take the edge of me when i am that wound up. I have done things like making things in the art room out of clay, putty and painting glass. It didn’t really make me any less anxious. Sometimes i cut my time short in these rooms as i couldn’t concentrate and was so wound up. Staff have also tried to read to me before and it didn’t help either.
I think with these things, it could be a case of whatever works for you do it. Or is there something special in knitting?
At the end of this i can remember now that listening to music i sometimes did like to do in treatment and at least sometimes i enjoyed listening to it. It didn’t really help me though to alter my behaviour.
Rachel,
I think knitting itself is less important than finding something soothing. If music works for you, then go with it. Knitting isn’t in itself special.
Can you include citations for articles you post about? Both for credit, and for the benefit of interested readers (like myself) who might be able and want to read the original?
My bad, Eva. I have been really busy and stressed with work stuff and totally forgot to include the link (I was working from a pdf someone emailed me rather than downloading the article directly from the journal). I will make the changes so you can read the article for yourself.
Alternately, feel free to drop me an email if you want to see the article.
Thanks! I have institutional journal access so I often want to download articles myself because I like to geek out over the methods and such;)
Amen to geeking out!
While it wasn’t ED that it helped, I actually found that crochet helped my Anxiety attacks in the middle of the night, which was how I got started with needlecrafts. When I was a child my mother tried to teach me, but failed miserably in both of our lacks of patience. So I am encouraged that learning to do something with your hands actually does help in other disorders as well!